The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• To the Right Honourable Charles James Fox.
• Preface.
• Personal Nobility Or , Letters to a Young Noble Man
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• The Spirit of Despotism.
• Preface.
• Section I.: Introductory.
• Section II. Oriental Manners, and the Ideas Imbibed In Youth, Both In the West and East Indies, Favourable to the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section III. Certain Circumstances In Education Which Promote the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section IV. Corruption of Manners Has a Natural Tendency to Promote the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section V. An Abhorrence of Despotism and an Ardent Love of Liberty Perfectly Consistent With Order and Tranquillity; and the Natural Consequence of Well-informed Understandings and Benevolent Dispositions.
• Section VI. On the Venality of the Press Under the Influence of the Despotic Spirit, and Its Effects In Diffusing That Spirit.
• Section VII. The Fashionable Invectives Against Philosophy and Reason, a Proof of the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section VIII. Of Loyalty, and Certain Mistaken Ideas of It.
• Section IX. On Taking Advantage of Popular Commotions, Accidental Excesses, and Foreign Revolutions, to Extend Prerogative and Power, and Encroach On the Liberties of the People.
• Section X. When Human Life Is Held Cheap, It Is a Symptom of a Prevailing Spirit of Despotism.
• Section XI. Indifference of the Middle and Lower Classes of the People to Public Affairs, Highly Favourable to the Encroachments of the Tory Principle, and Therefore to the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section XII. The Despotic Spirit Is Inclined to Discourage Commerce, As Unfavourable to Its Purposes.
• Section XIII. The Spirit of Despotism Displaying Itself In Private Life, and Proceeding Thence to Avail Itself of the Church and the Military.
• Section XIV. The Despotic Spirit Inclined to Avail Itself of Spies, Informers, False Witnesses, Pretended Conspiracies, and Self-interested Associations Affecting Patriotism.
• Section XV. The Manners of Tory Courtiers, and of Those Who Ape Them, As People of Fashion, Inconsistent With Manliness, Truth, and Honesty; and Their Prevalence Injurious to a Free Constitution, and the Happiness of Human Nature.
• Section XVI. The Spirit of Truth, Liberty, and Virtue, Public As Well As Private, Chiefly to Be Found In the Middle Ranks of the People.
• Section XVII. On Debauching the Minds of the Rising Generation and a Whole People, By Giving Them Military Notions In a Frée and Commercial Country.
• Section XVII. Levity, Effeminacy, Ignorance, and Want of Principle In Private Life, Inimical to All Public Virtue, and Favourable to the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section XIX. Certain Passages In Dr. Brown’s “estimate” Which Deserve the Serious Consideration of All Who Would Oppose the Subversion of a Free Constitution By Corruption of Manners and Principles, and By Undue Influence.
• Section XX. On Several Subjects Suggested By Lord Melcombe’s Diary; Particularly the Practice of Bartering the Cure of Souls For the Corruption of Parliament.
• Section XXI. On Choosing Rich Men, Without Parts, Spirit, Or Liberality, As Representatives In the National Council.
• Section XXII. Of the Despotic Influence of Great Merchants Over Their Subalterns, of Customers Over Their Tradesmen, and Rich Trading Companies Over Their Various Dependents, In Compelling Them to Vote For Court Candidates For Seats In Parliment, Merely T
• Section XXIII. Of the Pageantry of Life; That It Originates In the Spirit of Despotism; and Contributes to It, Without Advancing Private Any More Than Public Felicity.
• Section XXIV. Insolence of the Higher Orders to the Middle Ranks and the Poor; With Their Affected Condescension, In Certain Circumstances, to the Lowest of the People.
• Section XXV. Of a Natural Aristocracy.
• Section XXVI. The Excessive Love of Distinction and Power Which Prevails Wherever the Spirit of Despotism Exists, Deadens Some of the Finest Feelings of the Heart, and Counteracts the Laws of Nature.
• Section XXVII. On the Opinion That the People Are Annihilated Or Absorbed In Parliament; That the Voice of the People Is No Where to Be Heard But In Parliament; and On Similar Doctrines, Tending to Depreciate the People.
• Section XXVIII. The Fashionable Contempt Thrown On Mr. Locke, and His Writings In Favour of Liberty; and On Other Authors and Books Espousing the Same Cause.
• Section XXIX. Of the Despotism of Influence; While the Forms of a Free Constitution Are Preserved.
• Section XXX. The Spirit of Despotism Delights In War Or Systematic Murder.
• Section XXXI. On the Idea That We Have Arrived At Perfection In Politics, Though All Other Sciences Are In a Progressive State.
• Section XXXII. On Political Ethics; Their Chief Object Is to Throw Power Into the Hands of the Worst Part of Mankind, and to Render Government an Institution Calculated to Enrich and Aggrandize a Few, At the Expense of the Liberty, Property, and Lives of
• Section XXXIII. On Trafficking With the Cure of Souls, (cura Animarum,) For the Purposes of Political, I. E. Moral, Corruption.
• Section XXXIV. Of Mr. Hume’s Idea, That Absolute Monarchy Is the Easiest Death, the True Euthanasia of the British Constitution.
• Section XXXV. The Permission of Lawyers By Profession, Aspiring to Honours In the Gift of the Crown, to Have the Greatest Influence In the Legislature, a Circumstance Unfavourable to Liberty.
• Section XXXVI. Poverty, When Not Extreme, Favourable to All Virtue, Public and Private, and Consequently to the Happiness of Human Nature; and Enormous Riches, Without Virtue, the General Bane.
• Section XXXVII. On the Natural Tendency of Making Judges and Crown Lawyers, Peers; of Translating Bishops and Annexing Preferments to Bishoprics, In, What Is Called Commendam.
• Section XXXVIII. That All Opposition to the Spirit of Despotism Should Be Conducted With the Most Scrupulous Regard to the Existing Laws, and to the Preservation of Public Peace and Good Order.
• Section XXXIX. The Christian Religion Favourable to Civil Liberty, and Likewise to Equality Rightly Understood.
• Section Xl. the Pride Which Produces the Spirit of Despotism Conspicuous Even On the Tombstone. It Might Be Treated With Total Neglect, If It Did Not Tend to the Oppression of the Poor, and to Bloodshed and Plunder.
• Section Xli.: Conclusion.
• Antipolemus; Or, the Plea of Reason, Religion, and Humanity, Against War. a Fragment; Translated From the Latin of Erasmus.
• Preface. By the Translator.
• Antipolemus; Or, the Plea of Reason, Religion, and Humanity, Against War.

LETTER XLVII.

My Lord,

I never said that aristocracy or nobility was necessary or useful in a state. It is a question which I mean not to discuss. All I contend for is, that it cannot subsist long in any free country like our own, (especially since the example of France,) when unsupported by personal merit; a merit as distinguished as the rank, and titles, and privileges, with which it is honoured. Do you think, in this age, that a peerage given to a man because he is enormously rich, and has employed his riches, in corrupting boroughs for a number of years to serve a minister, confers such honours as the people venerate? Such peerages are objects of derision among all but servile dependents, or mean and weak admirers of false grandeur. If they were unfortunately to multiply too fast, there is no doubt but they would accelerate a total abolition of such distinctions, like that which has happened, contrary to the expectations of most men, in a country which once idolized nobility.

Riches and honours, united to personal merit, will always command unlimited respect. The riches acquire double value, the honours double lustre, when accompanied with weight and brilliancy of character. On the other hand, it must be owned, that personal merit appears to very great advantage, when the splendour of those showy externals throws a kind of sunshine upon it. A very little merit is magnified to a very extraordinary size, when united with birth and fortune; and great merit is then sure to have ample justice done it. What an encouragement this, for noblemen to labour in their youth in acquiring personal merit?

But you justly observe, that if learning is a constituent part of this merit, it must happen among noblemen, as among all other men, that the parts necessary to acquire learning may be deficient, or may not rise above mediocrity. How then shall they acquire this personal merit, in which alone true nobility is said to consist? Personal merit, my Lord, is of a very extensive nature. A lord, we all know, may be, as well as a plebeian, a dunce; but he may still have a great deal of such merit as will vindicate himself and his order from contempt. He may do good in every useful way, though he has not abilities to strike out new modes of doing it.

If abilities are rather deficient, he may still rely for respect, with full security, on the virtues. To do good by his property, by his influence, and by his example, requires not the abilities of an orator, or a great statesman. Let him mean well in all his conduct, and the world will make every due allowance for the defects of nature.

But if, in despair of shining in his proper sphere, he descends to the low company and amusements of pugilists; appears in public with sharpers, buffoons, grooms, horse-dealers, and jockies; avoids men of sense; gives no encouragement to useful or polite arts; and degrades himself by coarse mirth, childish pranks, by excess of drinking, or any other vice; then his nobility only serves as a torch to show in a more glaring light his foul depravity.

The public, considering how frail and imperfect human nature ever has been, will candidly pardon, in the peerage, a few instances of such degeneracy. They will not expect superior wisdom from men who are known to be naturally below the rank of common men in ability, though accidently raised above it in station. The peerage will not be abolished on their account, if the men of parts, like your Lordship, exert themselves to render it, upon the whole, useful and honourable in the eyes of their countrymen.

But let those who cannot shine, endeavour to be useful. Beneficence, in a nobleman of dull intellect, or poor attainments, if exerted without election views, will cause him to be loved and honoured in his generation. Let those who cannot say good things, do them; and the applause, though not so obstreperous, will be more lasting and general.

The public, my Lord, require nothing unreasonable. They wish those whom they have raised above themselves, not to sink below themselves by a voluntary indolence and depravity. They wish to see them stimulated by the virtue of their ancestors to higher improvements than others, both moral and intellectual. They wish to see nobility, like Wisdom, justified by her children; and, if these wishes are never likely to be gratified, but men are to degenerate in their natural rank in proportion as they are raised in their civil, they then wish to see nobility extinct, an incumbrance cleared away, and the honour of human nature and society vindicated, by the removal of a nuisance.

I am, &c.